STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER AJIT PAI
RE: Comprehensive Review of Licensing and Operating Rules for Satellite Services, IB Docket No. 
12-267.
When the Commission first targeted Part 25 as in need of reform, the International Bureau set out 
with the bold objective of “re-examin[ing] the entire satellite network licensing process.”
1
  No doubt the 
FCC’s staff had been listening to Dave Matthews Band’s Satellite and took inspiration from the line that 
“everything good needs replacing.”
Indeed, those lyrics might describe this whole proceeding, as we “look up, look down, all around” 
to thoroughly review our satellite licensing rules.  Last year, for example, we used this proceeding to 
review and amend 61 separate rules, ranging from the procedural (such as who may file the Form 312EZ) 
to the technical (such as specifying the maximum equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) spectral 
density for certain stations).
2
  This year, we examine 48 more.
Especially important to me is that today’s Further Notice picks up where we left off last year and 
tackles some of the challenges I identified then.  For example, I expressed hope that the Further Notice
would consider Boeing’s recommendation to reduce the burden of our milestone review process,
3
and 
today’s item explores several ways to do just that.
4
  I am in turn grateful to my colleagues for 
incorporating a number of my suggestions to improve the item even further.  Streamlining the licensing of 
small earth stations,
5
for example, is just one way we can mold our rules to make the United States the 
most desirable country in the world for licensing and operating satellites.
We should be clear that credit for this achievement goes not to those of us sitting at the dais, but 
to the Commission’s dedicated staff.  They have earned the laurels by painstakingly scouring the most 
obscure corners of Part 25.  Many of these staffers have been working with these rules since the 
International Bureau commenced its review.  So I extend my gratitude to Jose Albuquerque, Bill Bell, 
Tim Brennan, Mindel De La Torre, Chip Fleming, Diane Garfield, Jennifer Gilsenan, Kal Krautkramer, 
Steve Spaeth, Cindy Spiers, and Troy Tanner.  Thank you for seeing this through, and I look forward to 
working with you to complete this proceeding in the coming months.
                                                     
1
Federal Communications Commission, Biennial Regulatory Review 2000 Updated Staff Report at paras. 76–77 
(Jan. 17, 2000), available at http://go.usa.gov/jvpQ.
2
Comprehensive Review of Licensing and Operating Rules for Satellite Services, IB Docket No. 12-267, Report and 
Order, 28 FCC Rcd 12403 (2013).
3
Id. at 12515–16 (Statement of Commissioner Ajit Pai).
4
Further Notice at paras. 28–34.
5
Id. at paras. 87, 149.